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LY MAN C. DRAPER. 



BIOGRAPHICAL 

SKETCH 

OF 

LYMAN C. DRAPER, LL. D. 

SECRETARY 

OF THE 

State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 

BY 

is 

Prof. RASMUS B. ANDERSON, 

OF THE WISCONSIN UNIVERSITY. 

FROM THE ^ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF DANE CO., WISCONSIN: 

CINCINNATI : 
PETER G. THOMSON, PRINTER. 
x8Si, 




Hl3; 



The career of a literary man is usually suggestive of a 
quiet, uneventful life, devoid of the heroic excitements of war, 
or the adventurous incidents of the explorer of new worlds, or 
of the pioneer settler of the wilderness. The following sketch 
is no exception to this general rule ; and yet the almost three- 
score and ten years accorded to him whose life-work we pro- 
pose to portray, present a picture of varied interest, of which 
few countries, save our own, can furnish an example. 



Biographical Sketch. 



LYMAN C. DRAPER, oldest son of Luke and Harriet 
(Hoisington,) Draper, and of the fifth generation from James 
Draper^, who settled at Roxbury, Ma_ss., about 1650, was 
born a$. the mouth of EMi^Bn^Mrte., Creek, the shore of 
Lake Erie, in the^town of Hamburg, A Erie Co., N. Y., Sept. 
4, 1815. His paternal grandfather, Jonathan Draper, served 
in the Revolutionary war in the main army under Washing- 
ton, while his maternal grandfather, Job Hoisington, lost his 
life in the defense of Buffalo against the British, Dec. 30, 
181 3 ; and during that war, his father was twice taken 
prisoner by the British on the Niagara frontier. His parents 
removing to Springfield, Erie Co., Penn., when he was three 
years old, he was first sent to school there ; they then settled 
in the incipient village of Lockport, N. Y., on the line of 
the Erie canal, in the spring of 1821, where he, for the 
ensuing eight or ten years, attended the best schools of that 
day; worked a year or two on his father's farm, repairing the 
shoes of the family ; in their season, picking and selling black- 
berries at six cents a quart ; and one summer carrying brick 
in the erection of buildings, at twelve and a half cents a day. 
He subsequently engaged for awhile in clerking in mercantile 
establishments. 



6 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Libraries in that region of Western New York were then 
unknown, but occasionally a book could be borrowed. Soon 
after its issue, in 1 831, he succeeded in getting the loan of 
Campbell's Annals of Tryon County, or Border Warfare of 
New York, and of Rogers' Journals of the French War, and 
Life of Gen. Stark, and succeeded in purchasing Thatcher's 
Indian Biography and Indian Traits — works replete with 
thrilling incidents of Indian and Tory warfare ; and reading 
them with avidity, the}^ awakened in his mind a love for 
narratives of border adventure that largely gave direction to his 
subsequent tastes and pursuits. 

While at Lockport, he saw La Fayette on his visit to this 
country, in 1825 ; De Witt Clinton, Gov. Cass, and other 
notable characters. Even at that early day, such Seneca 
chiefs as Major Henry O'Bail, Tommy Jimmy, and others 
whom he met, made a strong impression on his youthful mind. 
His first school composition was on the services and character 
of the good La Fayette, and his first article for the press was 
on Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last of the immortal 
signers, whose death had recently occurred, written in February, 
1833, an d published in the Rochester Gem, a literary paper, of 
April 6th of that year. To this and other papers and magazines 
he afterwards frequently contributed. 

In the autumn of 1833, ne went to Mobile, Ala., at the invita- 
tion of Peter A. Remsen, a cotton factor there, who had married 
his cousin ; and in May, 1834, ne tnat c *tyj passing through 
New Orleans and up the Mississippi, while there were yet many 
cases of cholera, and went to Granville College, Ohio, remain- 
ing there over two years. 

His parents having removed from Lockport to Toledo, Ohio, 
he visited them at the latter place during vacation, in the sum- 
mer of 1835, an d took part with the Buckeyes in a little skirmish 
with the Wolverines, pleasantly called at that day " the battle of 



L YMAN C. DRAPER. 



7 



Mud Creek," in the environs of Toledo, one of the episodes of 
the Ohio and Michigan boundary difficulty of that period. On 
the 6th and 7th of September in that year, a body of over eleven 
hundred men from Michigan, under command of Gen. Brown 
and Gov. Mason, entered Toledo to prevent the first court from 
organizing under Ohio authority ; the organization, however, was 
quietly effected, and the troops had all retired by the 9th of the 
month. While in Toledo, the Michigan men boasted jocularly 
of having on the route there drafted numerous potato tops, the 
bottoms patriotically volunteering ; and, during their sojourn 
there, they made several valiant raids on potato patches and 
chicken coops, and on Col. Stickney's orchard, burning his 
rail fences and attacking his ice-house, 

A few days after, one bright morning about daybreak, on 
the 15th of September, a party of mounted Wolverines, reported 
in a Detroit paper to have been sixteen in number, stealthily 
entered Toledo, and captured at their residences Dr. N. Good- 
sell, Judge Wilson, Capt. Jones, and Mr. Davis, charged with 
the high crime of having accepted civil office under Ohio ; or, 
as the Michigan people termed it, "exercising foreign jurisdic- 
tion ;" the unwilling captives were thrust into a covered wagon, 
and rapidly driven toward Monroe, crossing the low bottom of 
Mud Creek over a corduroy road, where La Grange street now 
is. 

But the alarm was immediately given, and the military com- 
pany of some twenty citizens, under the leadership of Capt. C. 
G. Shaw, promptly rallied and hastened in pursuit ; young Draper 
ran along with the company, and one of the men, much debilitated 
by ague and fever, lagging behind, handed his rifle and accouter- 
ments to Mr. Draper, saying the gun was loaded with two balls. 
Starting from the little hotel just east of Dr. Fassett's, Shaw's 
party endeavored to cut across through the bushes and unoc- 
cupied ground, hoping to head off the Michigan sheriff's posse, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



and recover the prisoners before they should reach the point 
where La Grange street now crosses the old canal ; but, though 
they ran at a pretty fast trot, they failed in this. Reaching the 
high ground on the southern edge of the marsh or bottom skirt- 
ing Mud Creek, some little distance west of La Grange street, 
the Toledo company descried the retreating Michigan mounted 
party, with their wagon-prison, just emerging from the corduroy 
road and rising the opposite bank, the intervening distance a 
pretty long shot. 

The sheriff, or some other leader of the Michigan party, 
wheeled his horse as he reached the top of the ascent, and 
yelled back some sort of bravado, wanting to know, forsooth, if 
the Michigan authorities had not a legal right to apprehend 
whom they pleased. His speech was received with derision, 
and, about simultaneously, the respective parties exchanged 
several shots, Draper firing off his rifle with the rest, but pur- 
posely over-shooting, not caring, by any possibility, to do any 
harm, especially in an affair of this kind. Bullets whistled, twigs 
and splinters fell from the scattering trees, among the Ohio 
men. One young Toledo printer, Morrison H. Burns, was in 
desperate earnest, loading and firing two or three times, taking 
deliberate aim across a large oak stump. It was afterward 
reported that Mr. Wood, the Michigan sheriff, was shot through 
the arm, and a horse of his party wounded ; at all events, some 
villainous gunpowder was burned, and a big time was had, and 
the Ohio heroes returned to the village with flying colors and no 
little eclat, while the redoubtable Michiganders scampered off at 
their best speed. From this little experience, Mr. Draper drew 
the conclusion that in battles and skirmishes generally, there are 
so many circumstances to attract the attention, that few ever give 
themselves any thought of personal danger. 

It will, no doubt, surprise not a few of Mr. Draper's many 
friends to learn from this little reminiscence of forty-five years 



LYMArf C. DRAPER. 



9 



ago, that he, in common with his fellow-riflemen, was branded a 
"rebel" — so, at least, the Michigan Sentinel proclaimed it at 
the time. "After the sheriff and a part of the fosse had left," 
said the Sentinel, " a band of armed rebels, comprising the scum 
of Toledo, stationed themselves on an elevated piece of ground 
a short distance this side of the lower town, and commenced a 
brisk fire of ' riflery ' upon five or six of our men as they were 
returning homeward. The balls whistled in every direction 
about their heads;" and then adds, "The fire was returned." 

Elias Fassett, Esq., who was a youth at the time of this 
occurrence, and, with other lads, followed the Toledo party at a 
respectful distance in the rear, and has resided in Toledo ever 
since, states that Mr. Draper is believed to be the only survivor 
of Capt. Shaw's company. Capt. Shaw himself was one of the 
earliest adventurers for California when the gold mines were dis- 
covered, but sickened and died somewhere on the plains without 
reaching that land of promise. As matters began to assume a 
serious aspect, as the newspapers at the time expressed it, the 
General Government settled the difficulty by conceding to Ohio 
her territorial claim, and granting to Michigan, as an equivalent 
therefor, a much larger territory on the southern border of Lake 
Superior, comprising what is now divided into nine counties, rich 
in mineral resources. Thus ended the "Toledo war," a source 
of no little trouble while it lasted, as well as of many a gibe and 
joke. But by this unnatural assignment of territory west of Lake 
Michigan to the new State of Michigan, the subsequent State 
of Wisconsin was deprived of a large and valuable region which 
would otherwise have been included within her boundaries. 

In the autumn of 1836, Mr. Draper left Granville for Hud- 
son River Seminary, located near Stockport, Columbia Co., N. 
Y., remaining there a year, when he went to reside in the family 
of his patron and friend, Mr. Remsen, near Alexander, Genesee, 
Co., in the western part of that State, privately pursuing his 
studies and an extensive course of reading. 



10 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



While residing in Mobile, he made a beginning of collecting 
unpublished facts and traditions connected with border history 
and biography — securing, in this instance, events and incidents 
pertaining to the daring Creek chief Weatherford,— a habit which 
for nearly fifty years he has practiced with most remarkable suc- 
cess. And while at Granville, he became interested in the 
border works of Doddridge, Withers, McClung, Flint, and after- 
ward of Hall ; and, finding them oftentimes at variance with 
each other, he conceived the idea, in 1838, of a work on the West- 
ern pioneers, hoping by assiduous study to be able to rectify 
many of these defects and errors. This led to a correspondence 
with such men as Hon. Hugh L. White and Col. William Martin, 
of Tennessee ; Hon. Joseph R. Underwood, Col. Richard M. 
Johnson, Col. Charles S. Todd, Maj. Bland W. Ballard, and Dr. 
John Croghan, of Kentucky ; ex-Gov. David Campbell, of South- 
west Virginia ; Dr. Daniel Drake, Dr. S. P. Hildreth, and Col. 
John McDonald, of Ohio ; Hon. William C. Preston, of South 
Carolina, and many others, — which resulted in a large accumu- 
lation of historic materials, and multiplied references to other 
persons, many of them aged pioneers scattered throughout the 
West and South-west ; so that repeated journeys became neces- 
sary to visit and interview these venerable survivors of the early 
settlement and Indian wars of the Western country. 

Since 1840, these journeys have aggregated more than 
60,000 miles, by public conveyances, on horseback, and on foot ; 
with knapsack and note-books ; interviewing the companions 
and descendants of Dunmore, Andrew Lewis, Clarke, Boone, 
Kenton, Shelby, Sevier, the Campbells, Cleveland, Sumter, 
Pickens, Robertson, Crawford, Brady, the Wetzels, Tecumseh 
the Shawanoe chief, and the famous Joseph Brant of the Mo- 
hawks, securing many original diaries and manuscripts, making 
a unique and unequalled collection of original historic materials, 
filling well-nigh 250 manuscript volumes, and covering the whole 



LYMAN C. DRAPER. 



11 



sweep of the Anglo-American settlements, and border warfare 
of the West, from the first fight in the Virginia valley, in 
1742, to the death of Tecumseh at the Thames, in 18 13, and 
the defeat of Weatherford and the Creeks, the following year. 

In 1840, Mr. Draper went to Pontotoc, in Northern Mis- 
sissippi, where he edited a weekly paper for awhile ; then, in 
connection with Charles H. Larrabee, a fellow-student at Gran- 
ville, and since a judge and member of Congress from Wis- 
consin, he tried rough farming life, in a rude, floorless, and 
windowless cabin, for one season, living on sweet potatoes, 
corn-meal cakes, bacon and coffee — fifteen miles from a post 
office; and was there chosen a justice of the peace. In 1842, 
he went to Buffalo, serving as clerk in the Canal Superintend- 
ent's office for a year; then returned to Pontotoc for a season, 
journeying among the pioneers, and finally, in 1844, a g am 
becoming a member of Mr. Remsen's family, then residing 
near Baltimore, and subsequently in and near Philadelphia, 
maintaining the while an extensive historical correspondence, 
making frequent journeys in the Western and South-western 
States, and gathering a unique Library of books, pamphlets, 
magazines, and newspaper files, illustrative of border history ; 
and for the special purpose for which it is designed, it is con- 
fessedly the most valuable collection ever brought together. 

Mr. Remsen, his patron and friend of many years, dying 
in the spring of 1852, Mr. Draper, with Mr. Remsen's family, 
whose widow he subsequently married, removed to Madison, 
Wis., in the fall of that year, where he has since continued 
to reside. In January, 1853, he was chosen one of the Exec- 
utive Committee of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin ; 
and, the year following, its Corresponding Secretary and editor 
of its publications ; and has, during all these succeeding years, 
devoted much of his time to the interests of the Society, aid- 
ing largely in gathering the 90,000 volumes and documents 



12 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



in its Library, and editing its pamphlet issues and its eight 
volumes of Historical Collections. " It is," says Hon. T. W. 
Field, in his Indian Bibliogra-phy , "one of the noblest 
collections ever made by any Historical Society. It is a vast 
mass of original material, written mostly by border warriors, 
pioneers, voyagenrs, and others, who saw the events of which 
they wrote. By far the largest portion relates to the aborig- 
ines who once occupied the territory. It is to the intelligence 
and zeal of the learned antiquary, Lyman C. Draper, that the 
public are indebted for this model of Historical Collections." 

"The value of your Society's Collections," observes the 
scholarly Dr. J. G. Shea, " under their capable editorship, can 
only be appreciated by those who, like myself, have to use them 
in elucidating early history. That test .shows their real im- 
portance and worth, which may not appear to any ordinary 
reader. They are valuable contributions to history, and form 
an imposing array." In reviewing these volumes, the New Eng- 
land Historic-Genealogical R 'egis t er, for July, 1880, remarks: 
"These eight volumes contain a rich collection of articles 
and information relating to the history, genealogy and antiqui- 
ties of the State of Wisconsin, together with biographies of 
her distinguished citizens who have deceased ; and their pub- 
lication reflects abundant credit upon the Secretary of the 
Society through all these years, Mr. Lyman C. Draper." 

"No person in the North-west," said the Chicago Post, 
of June 2d, 1877, "has excelled Lyman C. Draper, Secretary 
of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, in solid contribu- 
tions to historical literature. Through his zeal and efforts, 
that Society is second to none of like character in the Union. 
Its Library has a national reputation, and its Collections, 
edited by Mr. Draper, have been pronounced by competent 
authority to be unequaled by those of any similar organization 
in the country. The State of Wisconsin honors herself, and 



L YMAN C. DRAPER. 



13 



illustrates the superior character of her population, by the con- 
tinued and liberal support she has given to her Historical 
Society. The result is a Library of great size and richness, 
and a collection of historical publications of incalculable im- 
portance." 

Prof. James D. Butler, in his Historical Sketch of the 
State Historical Society of Wisconsin , appended to President 
Whitford's History of Education in Wisconsin, thus speaks 
of Mr. Draper's connection with the Society : " Mr. Draper may 
be called the Perpetual Secretary. His name appears signed 
to every Annual Report from the first to the last, now these 
twenty-two years. He has also been perpetually at work, 
not only as Secretary, but as the factotum of the association. 
He has raised money for it not only at home, but from the 
most unlooked-for sources abroad. He has found rare and 
curious documents, which rich antiquarians had failed to find, 
and often procured them for his treasury without money and 
without price. He is understood to have bequeathed his own 
collection, which is without an equal in manuscripts illustra- 
tive of Western annals, to the Society, that, having served it 
through life, he may continue to serve it after death." 

6 ' One specimen of Mr. Draper's success in raising money, 
is the so-called Society's Building Fund. He first set apart 
for this end small fees and gifts, saying they should accu- 
mulate by interest and begging, till it amounted to at least 
$io,ooo. The project was laughed at even by those who 
pityingly gave it some trifle. But when last heard from, 
that Fund amounted to more than $4,000, besides a section of 
land." This was written by Prof. Butler, in 1876. The 
Fund thus mentioned by him now exceeds $8,000, besides a sec- 
tion of Texas land, and a bequest of $1,000 not yet available. 

A handsome volume could be filled with quotations from 
eminent men and prominent periodicals in regard to the value 
of Mr. Draper's labors in behalf of the Historical Society. 



14 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



In his Annual Address before the Society, and in the presence 
of the Legislature, in 1869, Hon. Harlow S. Orton, now one of the 
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the State, observed : 
"The indefatigable labors, under the fostering care of the 
State, of our invaluable and worthy Corresponding Secretary, 
Lyman C. Draper, have accomplished grand and magnificent 
results for our Society. He is a small and feeble man, and 
we may not long enjoy the active benefits of his correspond- 
ence and labors. While we have him, we should value and 
encourage him — he is worth his weight in gold to this Society 
and State." " Stand your ground," wrote Gov. C. C. Wash- 
burn, in 1877, " and the people will stand by you. There is 
no institution in Wisconsin that the people should be more 
proud of than the Historical Society. To you is the honor 
greatly due for building it up to its present great proportions." 

"The State Historical Society of Wisconsin," said the 
Louisville Monthly Magazine, of June, 1879, "is a good ex- 
ample of what can be done by systematic, persevering work 
in the establishment of a Library. It presents imposing strength. 
It has overcome all obstacles, and can now be safely assured 
of its prosperity as long as the State of Wisconsin exists. Its 
enemies in its infancy can now recognize it as one of the most 
potent agencies that have made Wisconsin a great State in — 
how few years ! We unhesitatingly declare it a greater honor 
to have been identified in promoting the welfare of such a 
Society than any to be obtained in political life. All honor 
to Wisconsin ! " 

Not a few of the Historical Societies of the country, 
aware of the large degree of prosperity which has attended 
the Wisconsin Society, have, in their incipient stages, applied 
to Mr. Draper for advice and suggestions as to the best 
methods of success. These requests have not come from one 
quarter alone, but from different sections of the country, 



LYMAN C. DRAPER. 



15 



especially in the South and West, where such institutions had 
not previously been organized ; or, if they had an existence, it 
was merely in name. As an instance, we cite the newly- 
formed Historical Society of Nova Scotia. Its Secretary, J. 
T. Bulmer, Esq., wrote, in May, 1878, saying: "Col. Brantz 
Mayer, President of the Maryland Historical Society, recently 
advised me as follows: 'Lyman C. Draper, my old friend, 
at Madison, Wis., is the model, in my poor judgment, for all 
Historical Societies, founders and administrators. Open your 
correspondence with him, without delay, and tell him I sug- 
gested to you to do so. ■ He is the most judicious and liberal 
of men.'" 

In this case, as in others, Mr. Draper took much pains 
in urging first an application, as strongly backed as possible, 
to the Legislature of the Province, for a -permanent appropri- 
ation of money, for a yearly grant of Government publica- 
tions for exchanges, and for such further aid in rooms, station- 
ery, etc., as the Province could supply; together with appro- 
priate suggestions for objects of collection from the public 
generally, and how best to secure them. In due time, Mr. 
Bulmer wrote gratefully, that he and his friends had followed 
Mr. Draper's suggestions, and had secured a permanent 
Government appropriation, and other favors. And so of the 
Minnesota, Iowa, and Kentucky Historical Societies, and other 
similar organizations. 

In the fall of 1857, Mr. Draper was chosen State Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction, serving at the head of that depart- 
ment during the years 1858 and 1859, bringing order out of 
chaos, and in every way possible rendering the public schools 
of the State efficient and useful. He visited several of the 
State Superintendents of Schools, and leading educators of the 
country ; among them Horace Mann, Hon. Henry Barnard, 
Presidents Wayland and Sears, and Rev. Dr. Egerton Ryer- 



16 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



son, of Canada, to consult them with reference to the most 
desirable plan for popular Libraries as an adjunct to the 
Public School system, aiming to reach the points wherein they 
had succeeded in other States and Canada, as well as the 
causes of their failure, where they had practically failed of 
success. It was found that the District Library system, by 
the smallness of the collections and the worthlessness of the 
books, had inspired no enthusiasm, nor accomplished any per- 
ceptible good results. 

With these lights before him, Mr. Draper proposed to 
the Legislature in his first Annual Report, that a Township 
Library system be created, by setting apart for that purpose 
one-tenth of the School Fund income, and imposing one-tenth 
of a mill tax on the taxable property in the State. That a 
competent State Board be chosen to select and approve the 
books, and contract for them at the lowest wholesale rates ; 
and where the townships were large, empowering the local 
boards to subdivide the Libraries into two or more parto, ?r»d 
by rotation have them go the rounds of the township. In 
this way, instead of having half a dozen or a dozen feeble 
Libraries in the several districts of the township, there would 
be one strong Library, largely increased each successive 
year, and made up of the choicest works in every depart- 
ment of literature, and procured at the lowest rates. A law 
was at once enacted for raising a Library Fund in 1859, a ^ ter 
a full discussion of the subject, and passed with scarcely a 
show of opposition. The first year a fund of $88,784.78 had 
been raised for Library purposes, when the great war tornado 
of 1 861 burst upon the country, and the Legislature, without 
due reflection and unwisely, repealed the Library Law, and 
transferred the money to the School and General Funds, so that 
the latter might aid in equipping our first regiments for the war. v 

Gov. Randall, in his Annual Message in January, 1859, 



LYMAN C. DRAPER. 



17 



thus spoke of Mr. Draper's Report: "The Superintendent of 
Public Instruction has made a very voluminous and able 
Report. It indicates great thought and labor, and will be of 
great value. It exhibits better than has ever been done 
before, the condition of our schools, the character of our 
system, and the resources at command for their support." 
Horace Mann, who has justly been styled the Apostle of Free 
Schools, said of Mr. Draper's Report: "It presents the most 
persuasive and effective argument in favor of education that 
has ever been offered to the world." Fine words these, 
coming from so noble a source. 

The State Legislative Investigating Committee, who 
annually examined into all the Wisconsin State Departments, 
gave through their Chairman, Hon. M. M. Davis, the fol- 
lowing testimony in their Report, in 1859, to Mr. Draper's 
efficiency and faithfulness as a public officer : c • The examina- 
tion into the office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction 
has ieen brought down to February, 1859, an( ^ tne com - 
mittee are most happy to find that the present Superintendent, 
Lyman C. Draper, has established a new order of things from 
that heretofore found in the management of that department. 
All the duties of the office are discharged with promptness ; 
accurate records of all the transactions are kept. Great credit 
is due Mr. Draper for the industry and efficiency with which 
he has discharged the duties of his responsible office.' 

In Hon. W. C. Whitford's Historical Sketch of Educa- 
tion in Wisconsin, prepared for the National Centennial of 
1876, occurs this highly complimentary paragraph: "Hon. 
Lyman C. Draper, of Madison, was Superintendent in the 
years 1858 and 1859. He na< ^ been for many years the 
efficient Secretary of the State Historical Society. He col- 
lected reliable statistics, showing the actual condition of the 
public schools ; and he organized the work of his department, 



18 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



which had been sadly neglected. The efficient system of 
conducting Teachers' Institutes was inaugurated while he was 
in office, and has continued in force until the present time. 
He procured, during . his term, the passage of an excellent 
law for establishing Town School Libraries. He wrote largely 
upon this subject in his Reports, and awakened much inter- 
est for it in different parts of the State. After a fund of 
$88,784.78 had accumulated for the benefit of these Libraries, 
the law was very unwisely repealed in 1861, and the money 
transferred to the School and General Funds. It is due to this 
enterprise, and to this indefatigable laborer, that this money 
should be refunded by the State, and this law revived. If 
this measure had been put in force, and prosecuted vigorously 
for a few years, it would have furnished an excellent basis for 
the introduction of the Township System of managing schools." 

The late President Daniel Read, of the Missouri State 
University, in some remarks at the Librarians' Convention at 
Philadelphia, in October, 1876, said: "The Hon. Lyman C. 
Draper, of Madison, Wis., who is well known as practically 
the founder of the Wisconsin State Historical Library, when 
elected State Superintendent of Education, brought forward as 
his great measure, a scheme of School Libraries ; and the 
Legislature, responding to his views, provided over $88,000 
to carry it out, which, however, upon the war breaking out, 
was diverted to the immediate necessities of the times. No 
measure is more popular or more generally acceptable with 
all classes than this provision for the intellectual food of the 
people. It has proved so everywhere." We can most heartily 
indorse the words of Dr. Read and President Whitford, and 
join the latter in the earnest hope that Mr. Draper may live 
to see his ideas in regard to Township Libraries realized. They 
are a lasting monument to his wisdom and patriotism. 

A zealous watch-care over the School Fund also engaged 



L YMAN C. DRAPER. 



19 



his attention. " We must award to Mr. Draper," said the 
Janesville Gazette and Free Press, of May 8, 1858, 4 4 great 
credit for his able and clear School Report upon a subject of 
vital importance to the welfare of the people of this State. 
His Report is timely, too, submitted, as it is, when there is 
an effort making to divert a large portion of the School Fund 
to other purposes. He takes strong ground against the transfer 
of another twenty-five per cent, of the Swamp Land Fund to the 
Drainage Fund, which would take from the School Fund fifty 
per cent, of the Swamp Land Fund We hope the members of 
the Legislature will study well the facts and suggestions of 
Mr. Draper, and listen to his appeal in behalf of the two 
hundred and fifty thousand children now living in our midst, 
and of the millions yet unborn. ^Whoever,' says Mr. Draper, 
6 attempts to divert any portion of our sacred School Fund from 
its consecrated purposes of education, should feel that he 
is treading on holy ground.' We may add, too, that it is 
dangerous ground for all who desire to stand well with the 
voters of this State hereafter. We do not hesitate to say, 
that after the forcible exposition of this matter given by the 
Superintendent, no man is fit to be a legislator who will vote to 
increase the Drainage Fund at the expense of the School Fund." 

During the term of his School Superintendency, Mr. 
Draper was ex-officio one of the Regents of the State Uni- 
versity, and of the Normal School Board ; and labored, with 
others, in rendering the University more efficient and more 
useful to the rising generation. He exerted himself to secure 
the labors and experience of that great public educator, Henry 
Barnard, at the head of the University and Normal School 
system of Wisconsin ; and Dr. Barnard, for a time, till his 
health failed him, gave a new impetus to all our educational 
matters, and especially to the Normal Institutes. As the Uni- 
versity Library had been neglected, Mr. Draper proposed that 



20 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



a specific sum be permanently set apart annually from the 
University Fund, for the increase and building-up of the Library, 
which was adopted. Though no longer in its immediate ser- 
vice, Mr. Draper is still one of the most steadfast friends of 
the University, and no man takes more delight in its progress 
and usefulness. We also know from personal acquaintance 
with the facts, that Mr. Draper was largely instrumental in 
securing to the University the services of the late Dr. S. H. 
Carpenter, one of the most efficient professors the University 
ever had. 

When Mr. Draper was chosen Superintendent of Schools, 
the lovers of border history everywhere regretted that he had 
been tempted from his field of antiquarian labor. Among 
others, the late Hon. Henry S. Randall, who had served as 
Superintendent of Schools of New York, and the well-known 
author of an excellent life of Jefferson, and other valuable 
works, wrote thus freely and pleasantly to his friend : 

"I am one of the fierce ' Democracie ; ' but, upon my 
word, I am disposed to regret your success. The field of a 
State Superintendent of Instruction is a fine one ; but there is 
a good deal of timber for good officers of this stamp, com- 
pared with that of historical investigators and archaeologists. 
Our early unwritten history — and, oh ! how little of it is written ! 
is passing away. This bustling, material generation is scramb- 
ling for bread and larger farms. Another generation will have 
lost about all our unwritten history ; that is, all except the 
-pseudo traditions, which we see sometimes worked up by 
sentimental fools. And of all the contemptible lies, those of 
history are the least excusable. 

"There is a rich field of history on our own borders. 
The man who collects and writes it must have peculiar quali- 
fications. Besides being a clear, vivid writer, he must have 
a peculiar taste in that direction. He must have untiring 



LYMAN C. DRAPER. 



21 



industry ; he must have enthusiasm. He must be ready to 
dig as faithfully and patiently to bring out a border incident 
as Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck would have dug to determine the 
foundations of a prastorium ! Yesterday I would have said, 
* Thou art the man!' But you have turned politician and 
office-holder. At any rate, you have been guilty of polygamy 
in your hobbies ! You have laid Boone and Clark, and those 
border heroes whom it makes my blood tingle to think of, 
on the shelf. Their - memory is going like snow in June, and 
you have put them off to a more convenient season. And 
then, too, there is that State Historical Society, which I 
expected to see made one of the features of your giant young 
State, half abandoned ! 

"Rely upon it, my friend, polygamy won't do when you 
wish to beget great offspring. Enthusiasm won't bear dividing. 
And — I being the judge — you have sacrificed the major to the 
minor. He who can save our true border history, can, in the 
first place, get his bread thereby, and he can also enroll his 
name high among the literary benefactors of mankind. He 
can make himself an American Camden — a household word 
among scholars and the people, to all generations. I hope 
you zuill get back to your task as soon as you -properly can, 11 

Mr. Draper has published several important works ; but, 
as we look over his list of publications, we feel a painful 
regret that he has not yet produced more from his extraor- 
dinary rich mine of history and biography. As already indi- 
cated, he possesses the material for a whole series of most 
absorbingly interesting works ; and looking at the petit done, 
and the un-done vast, in the matter of giving the public the 
results of his extensive collections and researches, we can not 
help praying that the hand of time may rest gently on him 
for many years to come, and enable him to give his many 
great border heroes a suitable dress for the publishers. 



22 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Besides the eight volumes of Collections of the State Historical 
Society, several pamphlets, and two elaborate School Reports, 
he produced, in 1869, aided by W. A. Croffut, a thorough 
work of over eight hundred pages, entitled, The Helping 
Hand: An American Hoine Hook, for Town and Country, 
devoted to farm matters, stock, fruit culture, and domestic 
economy, which was highly commended by competent judges. 
This work is, for some reason, bound up in litigation, and 
has not been made accessible to those "for whom it was in- 
tended. While we are not competent to estimate the merits 
of this work, we are persuaded by the criticisms passed upon 
it by those who are well up in agriculture and domestic 
economy, that it is a work of great value ; but when Mr. 
Draper showed us a handsomely bound copy of it, and 
mournfully unveiled to our mind the litigious bonds that hold 
it closed from the public gaze, we could not help rejoicing 
that the author had gotten a practical lesson in polygamy. 
The shoemaker should stick to his last, and the American 
public can not afford to let Mr. Draper grow rich out 
of prosy volumes on agriculture, though the work be ever 
so well done. We trust he did not fail to see the interven- 
tion of the hand of Providence in the fate of the Helping 
Hand. 

He has now in press a work in his own special line — a 
work that in some measure indicates what rich treasures he 
is able to bring forth from his unique Library and remarkable 
mind. The book is entitled King's Mountain and its 
Heroes, and sheds much new light on that brilliant episode 
of our Revolution ary history. It is being published by P. G. 
Thomson, of Cincinnati, and will soon be in the trade. He 
has completed a carefully prepared volume on the so-called 
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, of May, 1775. 
A literary critic who has examined the manuscript, thus 



LYMAN C. DRAPER. 23 

speaks of the merits of this work : 4 4 The author has been 
obliged to go over an immense mass of evidence, and slowly 
disentangle the knot which so many others have tried to cut. 
He has done his work thoroughly, and has produced an ex- 
haustive monograph, which, if printed, is destined to settle 
the question for all time." He has also in manuscript a large 
work on Border Forays and Adventures, in the prepara- 
tion of which he had the assistance of C. W. Butterfield, 
author of Crawford's Expedition, and other works, em- 
bracing the period from De Soto's romantic explorations 
down to the present century, and extending from Canada 
and the frontiers of New York to the Gulf of Mexico. Each 
chapter treats of a distinct subject, and treats it thoroughly, 
and is written largely from hitherto unpublished materials — 
another instance of the kind of coin that can be produced in 
Mr. Draper's wonderful mint. 

Thirty years ago, Granville College, Ohio, conferred on 
Mr. Draper the honorary degree of Master of Arts ; and, in 
1871, the University of Wisconsin that of LL. D., in recog- 
nition of his services in behalf of the historical literature of 
the country, and his unflagging efforts in rearing at the capi- 
tal of Wisconsin a great Public Library for the benefit of 
scholars and investigators for all coming time. He is either 
an honorary or corresponding member of the principal His- 
torical Societies of the country ; and, since 1876, one of the 
Honorary Vice-Presidents of the New England Historic- 
Genealogical Society. 

Mr. Draper has from the first of his antiquarian career, 
been a man of much system and persistent industry, never 
becoming wearied or discouraged in whatever he undertakes. 
This is one of the great secrets of his success. A proof of his 
thoroughly unselfish nature is the generous use he makes of 
his rich stores of historical acquisitions. He has freely — 



24 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



indeed, too freely for his own interest — aided fellow-laborers 
with facts and materials, and oftentimes without a proper 
acknowledgment on their part, so that when he subsequently 
had occasion to use the same facts, he might, to the unin- 
itiated reader, seem guilty of plagiarism, when in reality he 
was only reclaiming what was honestly his own, and for the 
acquisition of which he had labored and toiled as few have 
the ability and patience to do. Still, man} T authors have 
acknowledged their indebtedness to Mr. Draper, and the 
volumes in which he is mentioned would, if collected, make a 
very respectable Library, containing such works as School- 
craft's History and Condition of the Indian Tribes, Docu- 
mentary History of ISfew Yo?-k, Pennsylvania Archives, Park- 
man's History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac, History of 
Braddock's Expedition, Charles Campbell's Histo?y of Vir- 
ginia, Perkins' Western Annals, Peck's Life of Boone in 
Spark's American Biography , Ramsey's History of Tennes- 
see, Neill's Minnesota, and countless others. . • 

In his interesting volume of Tah-gah-jute or Logan and 
Cresap, the late Col. Brantz Mayer observes: 44 Mr. Draper, 
the distinguished and indefatigable Secretary of the Wiscon- 
sin Historical Society, is one of our ablest border historians 
and scholars. No student of American border life in early 
days, has accumulated so large, various, and valuable a stock 
of original manuscripts and printed authorities on the subject 
as has this kind and enlightened scholar. No one opens his 
treasures with more generosity to his friends and co-laborers. 
I may be permitted also to express the hope — in which I am 
sure American historians will cordially unite — that Mr. Draper 
will soon commence the publication of that series of pioneer 
histories and biographies, upon which it is known he has 
been employed for so many years." 

"We are looking anxiously," observed the Chicago Post 



lYMArf C. DRAPER. 



25 



in 1877, "for Mr. Draper's long-deferred Life of Gen. George 
Rogers Clark. No other living man has the material and 
knowledge he possesses for the work, and he is growing old. 
It would be a great loss if there should be too long delay in 
bringing out this work, which no one can doubt will be ex- 
ceptionally valuable." 

' It is to he hoped," wrote ex-Go v. B. F. Perry of 
South Carolina, in 1878, " that the Hon. Lyman C. Draper, 
of Wisconsin, who has been engaged for years in collecting 
material for the Life of Gen. Thomas Sumter, will meet with 
success. He is Secretary of the Historical Society of Wiscon- 
sin, and a literary writer and scholar of eminence. When I 
had the pleasure of meeting him several years since, I was 
amazed at the minute accuracy of his information in regard 
to the Revolutionary history of South Carolina, and all of 
her distinguished men." The promised volume on Sumter 
and his Men will prove, from its episodes of the old French 
and Indian war, and its racy details of the -Tory warfare in 
the South during the Revolution, a work of unusual interest. 

William A. Croffut, at one time associated with Mr. 
Draper in literary labors, wrote an appreciative sketch of him 
in the New York Graphic of Oct. 16th, 1875. From this we 
will, before closing, make a few extracts. "Down the street," 
says Mr. Croffut, "to his residence, I strayed to see the man 
who had built up a Library that ranks among the few mam- 
moth collections in our country — one of the very richest in 
American history. Here I found him, studying, writing, accu- 
mulating — certainly the most remarkable literary antiquary in 
the United States. His own historical appetite dates from his 
boyhood, and for over forty years he has constantly indulged 
it with fresh food. Instinctively seizing on a few representa- 
tive names, Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, Andrew 
Lewis, Simon Kenton, Thomas Sumter, Tecumseh, Brant, 



26 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Brady, and the Wetzels, the centers of pioneer history of the 
West, he has, for two-score years, followed up every clue, till 
he has gathered in his little hut a complete manuscript history 
of the development of the West. His investigations have been 
as thorough as they have been wide. He follows the trail of a 
fact with the persistence of an Indian, and the scent of a hound. 

"To collect these materials, he has traveled more than 
sixty thousand miles since 1840, visiting aged pioneers and 
Indian fighters, the men who cleared the woods and laid the 
foundations of the State. Living on a meager salary, and 
much of the time with no income whatever, he has traveled 
thousands of miles on foot. He has made several journeys 
on foot, going on a single jaunt eight hundred miles, carry- 
ing his knapsack. This involved great hardship and self- 
denial, and not a little danger. His feet became sore at one 
time, compelling him to make his way on hands and knees 
to a settlement. He came near losing his life on several 
occasions, swimming swollen streams, capsizing in stages, and 
caught in the snagging of steamboats, but he hazarded every- 
thing to clear up an obscure event in the life of one of his 
border heroes. 

" His enthusiasm and keen scent have yielded to no im- 
pediment. The walls of his Library are hung with trophies 
and relics of his extended search, and on the shelves are 
packed two hundred and fifty manuscript volumes of crude 
history, nearly all original. Concerning the life and con- 
quests of Gen. G. R. Clark, 'the Washington of the West, 1 
he possesses twenty-five manuscript volumes ; ten relating to 
Boone and his ancestors, including Boone's letters, his field 
notes of surveying, and his private memorandum and account- 
books. Another of Draper's heroes is Gen. Simon Kenton, a 
noted border fighter, and companion of Clark and Boone, 
who was captured by the Indians, and several times escaped 



L YMAN C. DRAPER. 



27 



the stake and faggot, and who was once tied on a wild colt, 
Mazeppa-like, and left to his fate in the pathless woods. Of 
Brady, the Wetzels, Brant, and Tecumseh, he has collected 
many volumes, and he has about a dozen volumes of manu- 
scripts concerning Sumter, the Revolutionary hero of South 
Carolina, matter new and exhaustive. 

"One other odd fact is, that Mr. Draper has published 
almost nothing. Unlike Plutarch, to whom I have compared 
him, he is naturally a gleaner rather than a compiler. He 
gathers facts and hoards them like a miser — not because he 
is secretive or fails to comprehend that they ought to be used, 
but because he takes more pleasure in collecting than in edit- 
ing. He more keenly enjoys going forth afoot and search- 
ing every corner of the West for an old scrap of letter, or to 
find a lost link in the chain of some minor narrative, than to 
acquire either fame or money in publication. The love of 
accuracy and completeness is a passion with him. 

"Dr. Draper is a small, wiry man, and, while his head 
and beard are silvery, his eye preserves the brightness, and 
his step the elasticity of youth. He has marvelous energy 
and persistence that never tire. Whatever may result as to 
working up his collections, he will enrich the future with his 
possessions ; and when he passes away, he will leave behind 
him the merited fame of having done more than all other men 
put together toward restoring the lost history of the West." 

"Seeing him-now," says F. A. Moore, "it is hard to 
comprehend the secret force and energy that have inspired 
him through all these long and patient years." "Our wonder 
was," observes the well-known bibliographer, Joseph Sabin, 
"that a man of his slight fhysique could have accomplished 
a tithe of his work.'' 

Such is a brief sketch of the man of whose collections 
Jared Sparks, thirty-five years ago, expressed his amazement 



28 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



— since that time, they have been more than doubled ; and 
whom the late Col. John McDonald, himself a pioneer, and 
author of Border Sketches, denominated "The Western Plu- 
tarch." "I look forward," writes Bancroft, the historian, 
" with eager and impatient curiosity- for the appearance of 
your lives of Boone, of Clark, and of James Robertson, and 
so many others. Time is short — I wish to read them before 
I go hence. Pray do not delay ; the country expects of you 
this service." 

We have quoted freely what others say of Mr. Draper, in 
order to show the eminent position he holds among the great 
scholars of our country who make American historv their 
specialty, and hence are able to speak with authority on the 
value of his labors. We have given mere glimpses of the 
vast amount of praise that has been bestowed upon him ; but, 
we trust, we have given enough to illustrate both the char- 
acter and value of his labors, the caliber of the man, and 
the fair fame that belongs to his name throughout the country, 
and which is destined to last through all time. We feel 
deeply interested in the publication of his long-promised works. 
Just as mythology forms the background of the history of 
the nations of the Old World, so the American people can 
find the dawn of their existence in the New World radiant and 
glowing with the strange figures of the pioneers, whose lives 
will, in times to come, be commemorated in songs as weird 
and thrilling as those we read in the Iliad and Odyssey, in 
the ^Eneid, the Niblung story, and the Eddas. Our pioneer 
history will be to those who come after us, what the achieve- 
ments of Agamemnon and Menelaus, of Odysseus, of ^Eneas, 
Sigurd and Gunnar, and Helen and Brynhild were, and still 
are, to the Greeks, the Romans and the Teutons ; but the 
heroic age of America will be more realistic, and for this 
our posterity will be largely indebted to such men as Lyman 



LYMAN C. DRAPER. 



29 



C. Draper. In his collections there is food for many gener- 
ations of Homers and Virgils, of skalds and bards and 
minnesingers. Our posterity will delight in the thrilling 
stories of Boone, of Clark, of Brady, of Sumter, and of other 
far-traveled heroes, who penetrated into the wild forests of 
Indiandom, and laid the foundations of the United States. 
Tantce molis erat Americanam condere gentem! — and no easy 
task has it been for our friend Draper to gather up all the 
scattered records of the toils and sufferings of our Western 
fathers ; but an immortal fame is his just reward. 

Mr. Draper reminds the writer of this sketch most forcibly 
of the Icelander, Arne Magnusson, who was born in 1663 and 
died in 1730. He gained for himself a celebrated name — less 
by his writing, for, though he was remarkably familiar with 
the history and literature of his country, he found but little 
time for composing books, — than by the most astonishing zeal 
with which he collected manuscript chronicles, letters, and 
other documents illustrative of the history of the North. As 
a most untiring collector of Icelandic manuscripts, he was 
facile -princess. He was sent by the Danish Government 
from Copenhagen as a member of a commission to Iceland, 
whose duty it was to settle the registry of the land of that 
island. During his ten years' sojourn there, he employed 
himself in seeking old documents with an indefatigable 
energy, to which we have never known a parallel, excepting 
in the case of Mr. Draper. He did for old Norse literature 
what Archbishop Parker did for Anglo-Saxon literature, and 
what Mr. Draper has done for American border historical 
literature. Arne Magnusson was armed with a royal letter, 
commanding the Icelanders to deliver to him all they pos- 
sessed in the shape of written documents. He did not wait, 
however, for the people to bring him their treasures, in 
obedience to the royal mandate ; but, during those ten long 



30 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



years, he traveled from house to house, hunting up manuscripts 
stored away in huge oak chests, the receptacles of the ward- 
robe, and everything accounted valuable by the peasantry. 
He peered carefully over the doors of the guest-chambers and 
in out-of-the-way nooks, in case a scrap of paper might per- 
ad venture lurk there. The harvest that he brought back to 
Copenhagen was simply extraordinary. 

He also went to Norway, where he, in the same man- 
ner, visited countless houses, penetrating as far as to Norland, 
bringing back many precious manuscripts. His collection, 
unique in its kind, has never been surpassed in quantity or 
in value. Unfortunately, the larger portion of it was con- 
sumed by the disastrous fire which visited Copenhagen in 
1728. What was saved, with what he was afterward able to 
add to it, he left, by will, to the University of Copenhagen, 
together with a sum of money to defray the expense of its 
publication. The result of this beneficence has been a goodly 
array of quarto volumes given to the world, containing all 
the chief early Icelandic works, each volume bearing on its 
title-page the representation of the illustrious founder of these 
historic and literary treasures. The so-called Arne Mag- 
nusson Collection is the most important of its kind ever made 
by a single individual ; and when we consider that two-thirds 
was destroyed by fire, we can form some idea of what that 
loss must have been. To any one who knows how difficult it 
is to travel in Iceland, the parallel here drawn between Mag- 
nusson and Mr. Draper can not fail to be interesting. While 
Col. McDonald and Mr. Croffut have denominated Lyman C. 
Draper the Plutarch of the West, I am inclined to style him 
the Arne Magnusson of America; and I only wish he may, 
in time, make a similar disposition of his large collection of 
manuscripts, covering, as they do, the whole sweep of the 
Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi valleys, with 



L YMAN C. DRAPER. 



31 



much of the border Revolutionary history of New York, 
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. 

I have known Mr. Draper intimately for many years, 
and have learned to admire his many excellent qualities. 
With vigor, fidelity, and marked success, he has devoted his 
life to the study of American history, and the interests of the 
Wisconsin State Historical Society. In public and in private 
life, he has always been found genial, straightforward, clear- 
headed, and, above all, unostentatious. In the field of 
Anglo-American settlement, Revolutionary and border wars, 
and pioneer history generally, he has but few, if any, peers 
in the country. 

It is proper to state that, in the preparation of this sketch, 
the materials have been gathered partly from a notice of 
him found in Turtle's Illustrated History of Wisconsin, pub- 
lished in 1875, P ai "tly from a sketch of him in the New York 
Graphic, published October 16th, 1875, P art ty from pam- 
phlets, magazines, and other printed sources, and partly from 
notes furnished me by Mr. Draper himself. All dates and 
facts can, therefore, be vouched for as thoroughly reliable. 
It is a matter to be regretted that, in a sketch so limited, 
many interesting points in the life of this energetic and 
scholarly man have either received but a passing notice, or, 
what is still worse, been altogether omitted. 

We trust, however, that the few facts here presented may 
serve to stimulate young men to imitate so noble an example. 
Mr. Draper has, by his success, demonstrated to all aspiring 
young men what human genius, enterprise, industry, and faith- 
ful devotion can accomplish. 



